When you hear
the beak scratch
of birdsong
as your pen
noses through
the rustling
leaves of lined
white paper,
think of the tree
the paper
once was: all
those forests
whose voices
are trapped now
in the hard
winds beneath
the buried
skies of coal.

The sound of
those voices,
or just the
memory
of those trees
and forests—
that's what you
write about.